The mythologeme of wind in Karelian beliefs: an interdisciplinary aspect

The article examines the mythological conceptions of the wind among the Karelians based on the analysis of disease denominations attributed to this element and the corresponding healing practices in traditional culture. The aim of the study is to identify and systematize these conceptions. The empirical basis comprises lexicographic sources, field records, and folklore texts in the Karelian language. The study employs an interdisciplinary approach based on a comparative analysis of linguistic and ethnographic data, which enables the correlation of linguistic facts with ethnographic evidence. A comparative analysis is conducted across related (Vepsian, Finnish) and genetically unrelated (Russian) languages, all belonging to the same geographical and cultural area. In Karelian, the polysemous lexeme tuuli denotes wind, direction, disease from wind, and mood. Diseases attributed to the wind are two component lexemes: first part ‘wind’, second encodes causation, e.g., muahine (eczema from earth, with abscesses) and nenä (mystical disease with cough, headache). It is demonstrated that the wind is personified in the Karelian worldview and endowed with both destructive and healing powers. Among the Karelians and other Baltic-Finnic tribes, three elements – water, forest, and wind – are most deeply woven into the mythological fabric of everyday life. According to traditional beliefs, the wind was perceived as a living entity endowed with healing and destructive powers, having daughters, sons, labourers, and servants: tuulen poijat ‘sons of the wind’, tuulen tyttäret ‘daughters of the wind’, tuulen kazakat ‘labourers of the wind’, and tuulen käskyläzet ‘servants of the wind’.  Treatment used incantations addressing the wind as master (tuulen ižändy), mistress (tuulen emändät), beloved breeze (armahane tuvlut), and familiar breeze (tutavane tuvlut), often with ritual manipulations to drive away the malady. The findings indicate that the conceptions of the wind as both a source of illness and a means of healing constitute a stable component of traditional Karelian culture, shared with neighbouring peoples; the results are relevant for safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage of Finno-Ugric peoples.

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